The Art of the Giveaways: How to Boost Your Business with Free Giveaways

When you can easily promote your business on social media, why do you still need to do giveaways? Aren’t promotional products just for trade shows and events? Why should you bother with giveaways when online ads are enough to attract new customers?

While tapping digital channels is a must if you want to have a strong online presence, you can’t discard traditional means of marketing altogether. The fact is, promotional products and branded giveaways still have an impact on the marketplace.

For one thing, people keep promotional products for more than six months. Compare that to your target audience’s exposure to your online ads.

Both will cost you money, sure. But as far as brand recall is concerned, you can clearly see where giveaways (especially free ones) have PPC beat. That said, here are some tips on planning the perfect giveaways to boost your business.

Set Goals

Before you even get to brainstorming giveaway ideas, you need to be clear on what you hope to accomplish from this campaign. Yes, you want to boost your business. But what do you mean by that exactly?

Do you want more sales? Are you hoping to generate buzz for your brand? Or maybe you’re trying to grow your following on your social media accounts?

Whatever your goals are for this giveaway, you have to clarify them. Doing this will help you come up with the right metrics to use. And when you know what metrics to use, you can say for certain if your giveaway was a success or not.

Choose a Good Prize

You can spend all your time perfecting your brand promotion ideas. But if you have lousy prizes to give away, you’re not going to accomplish any of your giveaway goals.

So what makes a good prize? Cash? Gift cards?

It’s easier to decide on a prize if you know your target audience well. What would appeal to them and their friends?

For example, do they like one of a kind men’s jewelry? If yes, then you should do something like this giveaway.

Make the Mechanics Simple

You know how a website should be easy to use and navigate? The same principle applies to giveaways.

If you make people jump through hoops to join your giveaway, they will get to a point where they’ll feel the prize isn’t worth the hassle. Your best bet is to make the mechanics as simple as you can. That means no completing long surveys or having participants publishing a blog post every day.

Besides, the easier you make it for people to join your giveaway, the fewer problems you’ll have when it comes to tracking results. After all, likes or new subscriptions are easier to track than analyzing customer intent from their survey answers.

Partner with Influencers

Believe it or not how to start a giveaway is actually the easy part. Getting people to notice and join your giveaway is where it can be challenging.

That’s why you need to think beyond your target customers if you want your giveaway to be a success. Consider tapping influencers in your industry.

How would this work? Let’s say you’re selling organic beauty products. Why not partner with beauty bloggers for your giveaway?

The more partners you can get for your giveaway, the wider your reach will be. And the more likely your campaign will be a success.

Get the Word Out

Are you done once you’ve finalized the giveaway mechanics, prize, and list of partners?

Of course not. You wouldn’t call it a day after launching a new product, right? Giveaways are no different.

You have to market your giveaways the way you would a new product or service. That means promoting it on your social media channels and keeping everyone on your email list in the know about your giveaway/s.

It could also mean using targeted advertising. If you’re hosting an Instagram giveaway, you may want to consider a sponsored story or post.

Explore Other Ways to Promote Your Giveaway

We’ve covered ads and social media promotion for your giveaway. But what about blog posts and YouTube? The rule of thumb is you have to tap as many marketing channels as you can to make your giveaway viral.

So if you have a company blog, dedicate some space for writing about your giveaway. Make sure to emphasize the prize you’re giving away. Hype it up so your readers will feel excited to join.

And if you have a YouTube channel, why not make a video explaining your giveaway mechanics? Or you could ask your employees to share on their personal social media accounts. There are so many ways to promote your giveaway and you lose nothing by trying them all.

Don’t Forget About the Winner

You spent a lot of time planning and promoting your giveaway. And now you have a winner. If you don’t give your winner due attention, how would other people know that your giveaway was legit?

So once you’ve chosen a winner, let everyone know about it. And if you can get the winner to post about his or her prize online, better.

This would encourage others to participate in your future giveaways. Plus, it’s social proof that your giveaways or contests are worth joining.

After the Giveaway: Yes, There’s More!

When your giveaway closes, you can’t get the new leads you’ve captured go cold. That’s why you need a follow-up strategy. One way to do this is to send them an e-mail thanking them for their participation even if they didn’t win a prize.

You can also give them a discount code to keep them interested. It’s a genius move because you’re encouraging them to buy from your site. When you do another giveaway, you can count on these new leads to join and even promote your new campaign.